52 BIRDS OF P. E. ISLAND 



delighted haunt is the upper river course, where 

 the fohaged banks make mystic shadows on the 

 moving crystal of the tide. Unseen he sits on 

 some shadowed perch, motionless until the glint 

 of scales passes in the stream below. Then, like 

 a winged javelin, he dashes, and in a moment 

 rises from the silvery spray with an exultant laugh, 

 bearing off his finny prey to his home in the 

 deep - drilled river bank. His nest - hole, seven 

 or eight feet deep, is sunk in the face of a clear 

 clay bank. The nest, where half a dozen hardy 

 young ones are reared, consists of a few scattered 

 fish bones lining the rude clay cavity. 



filack-billeb Cuckao. 



( Coccygus erythrophthalmus) 



The Black - billed Cuckoo is a rare summer 

 visitant that spends but a few short weeks of the 

 leafy months with us. Tennyson says of the 

 English Cuckoo : 



" To right and left 

 The cuckoo told his name to all the hills." 



